


Suspect

by ellorgast



Series: Monster Socks! [3]
Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Canon - Manga, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:20:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellorgast/pseuds/ellorgast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Secret identities are pesky things to keep a secret, especially when you get blood on your tuxedo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suspect

Tuxedo Kamen wedged himself through his dorm window, cursing Harvard's ancient buildings and the windows that did not open quite wide enough for a grown man to fit through, even on the third floor where no grown man had any business crawling through a window. It was, at least, a blessing that he had been assigned a single, since there would simply be no explaining to any roommate why he was tuxedoed, bleeding, and crawling through a third-floor window in the middle of the afternoon.

Youma were everywhere, or at least they had the potential to be. He had long suspected that the prevalence of youma in Tokyo had much to do with all that delicious senshi power drawing them out of hiding, and his theory, unfortunately, just had to go and get itself confirmed today. 

In the tiny, but neatly kept bathroom, Mamoru dehenshined and immediately stripped off his shirt, trying not to let too much blood soak into it before he did. He had dispatched the creature quickly, before too many people could see, but not before the thing had managed to take a good swipe at him. He had been too busy watching out for the teeth to pay attention to the claws. He stood in front of the mirror, a lanky Japanese man still flushed and panting from running. Gingerly, he lifted his right arm. Twin gashes sliced down his ribs and hazardously close to his stomach, but he had had worse. Much worse. These might as well have been kitten scratches.

The problem was, Kain was picking him up in fifteen minutes. To play basketball, no less, which meant that temporarily bandaging the wound would risk pulling the bandages and bleeding all over--something that simply attracted too many questions. He would have to heal it, and fast, though he wished the damn things would stop bleeding all over the place. His cabinet was stocked with enough gauze to mummify a rhinoceros--he ripped open a sterilized package, pressed it to the bloodiest point, and set to work.

***

Beneath the falling leaves that flittered over Harvard campus, a man in a neatly pressed shirt was running like his life depended on it. He had never been late for an appointment--indeed, he prided himself on his impeccable timing. This man, in his well-polished shoes, eyes glinting in determination, was, in fact, right on time for his appointment. But he ran, because he had never in his life so wanted to arrive early.

"Something happened," Neil's deep voice had informed him when he picked up his phone at a red light. His tone had made Kain listen. He was serious, and serious was a rare state to find Neil in. "Here on campus. I don't know what, but it was definitely a fight. I felt it, I knew something big had to be happening close by. I came running, but it was already over when I got here."

Kain wanted to ask whether he had seen anybody, but obviously, if he had, that would have been the first piece of news that Neil would have given him. "Is there evidence of the fight?"

"A few gouges in the grass, looks like something big was thrashing around, but nothing really visible. But this place, it's--it's dripping with residual power. My ears are ringing, man. Kain, I think... I think it had to have been him."

Neil didn't sound tentative about anything unless he desperately wanted it to be true. He let the silence linger after that statement, as if holding his breath, waiting for Kain to confirm his theory. It was one thing to go around befriending Japanese pre-med students in the faint hope that they might fit the criteria for being their prince. It was quite another to have solid evidence of his presence right under their noses.

Kain had pulled into the Harvard parking lot, taking a slow breath as though he could not quite believe the words that would come out of his mouth. "I think you may be right."

And so he ran. He ran because somewhere, in this campus that was lit up with autumn oranges, his prince was alive and closer than he had ever been. He ran because the only likely candidate that his mind kept returning to was the very person he was on his way to meet, and if he could only hurry, if he could just get there soon enough--

Mamoru was taking an uncharacteristically long time to answer his door. Maybe that was a good thing, since Kain had arrived out of breath, and Kain was never out of breath. He had just taken three flights of stairs two steps at a time, frightening a pair of freshmen as he overtook them on the landing. Feeling strangely anxious, he smoothed down his shirt and ran his fingers through his hair before knocking a second time.

There was a scramble behind the door. Hurried footsteps, a dull thud, a muttered Japanese curse, a strained voice calling "just a second!" Seconds passed, suspiciously, before the door finally whipped open, and a flustered, dripping Japanese man was smiling up at him. "Sorry, I was in the shower. I must be running late."

Kain returned his smile. "Traffic was lighter than I thought. I got here a bit earlier than I expected."

Mamoru stood aside to let him in. Beads of water were sliding down his hair as though he had barely had time to run a towel over it. "Do you mind waiting for me? I'll just be a couple minutes."

"Of course. Take your time." Kain watched him in the few seconds before he disappeared into the bathroom, holding only a towel around his waist. The quick scan yielded no signs of injury, not even a stray limp in his walk. It had been five minutes since Neil had called. How long since the actual fight? Ten minutes? Twenty? More than enough time for superficial wounds to heal, if he was anything like the Endymion that Kain remembered. If he was anything like Endymion at all.

Giving up on that dead trail, he scrutinized the small dorm room, instead. Though it was limited for space, the entire room seemed almost uninhabited in its sparseness. The bed was neatly made and the nightstand free of clutter, reminding Kain of a hotel room. The desk revealed a bit more personality, with a few books and a photo of that girlfriend he was mad about. Otherwise, there was no sign of a hasty return to the room after a good old fashioned monster brawl. Not even a sock out of place.

Kain noted that the window was partially open, and that it had no screen in it. It was not incredibly hard to believe that someone of Mamoru's size could fit through such a window. It was also not hard to notice that the day was uncharacteristically warm for fall, and that opening the window was not an unusual course of action.

Mamoru emerged from the bathroom, chest still bare but a pair of jeans replacing the towel. His hair was damp, but no longer dripping. "Is it true that Sasha's back with that Samantha girl?"

A smirk played at Kain's lips. "So I hear, but I wouldn't place much stock by it. It never lasts long."

He watched as the Japanese man crossed the room to the closet. Even his jackets were hung up nicely on the hangers, instead of thrown over chairs or into a heap on the floor, as was customary among Kain's roommates. "Really? Sasha always seems so serious about it, though."

Kain edged around the wall of Mamoru's room as he spoke. "They'll have noisy sex at inappropriate times for a week and then they'll remember that they don't know how to talk without loud music on and stop calling each other out of boredom. It always happens like that." 

"Does this happen a lot?"

Mamoru's back was turned to him, as he sifted through the hangers for a shirt. Kain glanced through the open door of the bathroom. Nothing seemed to be amiss, but he had every good reason to check it. "More times than I can count."

"Why does he still bother, then?" The question came to him through the bathroom doorway, just after he had slipped through it himself. Everything seemed to be in order. The sink held a generic bar of soap and a toothbrush. The mirror was fogged with lingering shower steam.

"Because Sasha hates not to be with someone. He'd rather date a lost cause than nothing at all."

"That seems kind of sad." Something in the rubbish bin caught his eye.

"That's Sasha. He's a people person." White fabric.

"Does being a people person require sleeping with all of them?" Mamoru's footsteps began to near the bathroom door.

Kain leaned against the doorframe, heading him off. "Sometimes. If you're Sasha."

Mamoru smirked in a way that became him more than the reserved front he usually put up. Kain was seeing less and less of that distant persona lately. "So what you're telling me is that I need to watch my girlfriend around him."

"Come to that, you need to watch yourself around him. Don't trust those innocent eyes."

Mamoru led the way to the door, pulling on his jacket. "I'll try not to wander down any dark alleys with him, then."

Kain followed, though his thoughts remained in the rubbish bin beside the sink. A discarded shirt with a fresh spot of red on it could have meant nothing. "He's short. You could take him."

Mamoru locked the door behind them. "Just as long as he doesn't turn any of his jewelry into a weapon."

"You're right. I think you're screwed, mate."

Or it could have meant everything.


End file.
